


Futile Devices

by fletchfeathers



Series: Don't Be Afraid (You're Already Dead) [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, Orsus, idk i wanted BOSS THINGS, just a lil thing for the big egg, let me live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 07:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fletchfeathers/pseuds/fletchfeathers
Summary: Jackdaw – Helena – had had ason. He had anephew, and he hadn't even known until the kid had turned up on his doorstep, skinny as a rake and frozen half to death.





	Futile Devices

**Author's Note:**

> just a very short, very loose little boss drabble bc I love this big lug so MUCH fite me.

_Boss, you're a damned fool._

Boss scrubs his hands down his face as he lowers himself into his office chair, ignoring how the battered furniture protests, and shoves a stack of papers aside to lean forward on his desk.

Jackdaw – Helena – had had a _son_. He had a _nephew_ , and he hadn't even known until the kid had turned up on his doorstep, skinny as a rake and frozen half to death. Half-elf, of course, and a damn near clone of his father; but still, somehow, so much of his mother shines through him. Boss almost wishes it didn't, almost wishes the boy was as much that High Elf bastard as he looked, because maybe then it would stop feeling like he'd been kicked in the chest every time he looked him.

Boss already has a name picked out - his current one doesn't fit him at all, seems to settle too heavy on his shoulders. Which is bad, because he never picks the names for the kids before they prove themselves, and he shouldn't be making an exception when this one's barely been here three days.

Or should he? The kid is family, elf blood or not, and the last piece of his sister's flesh and blood left in the world.

_Fuck._

Restless, he stands again, going to light the stick of incense that sits on his shelf – the lavender one, that smells just like her old perfume – and as the hazy smoke drifts across the room, he begins to pace, trying to calm his racing thoughts.

See, Boss prides himself on being pretty unshakeable. He has to be in his line of work, with all the things he sees and does – there's no room for panic or impulse, especially not for him. All these kids, and more besides, rely on him to stay steady, to be a place of shelter in a world that has proven unkind at best entirely too soon for them.

And yet.

He's only human, and he loved his sister; she was his best friend, his confidant, the only person in the world he could bring himself to fully, completely trust. Even when she went out of her way to annoy him and drive him fucking crazy, she kept him believing that there was a world outside that might be worth fighting for.

She believed so fiercely in the world that killed her, and when that bastard High Elf stole her away – words couldn't describe it.

And then, three days ago, he saw his sister's eyes for the first time in ten years, and in the same breath found out she was gone, had died in the gutter like a dog, trying to escape the Elf that had made her life a living hell.

And she'd been trying to find this place, the Crow's Nest, her last chance at safety for herself and her son.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._

He pauses, because for the first time in a long time he feels tears prick at his eyes; and he forces them down, pushes them back, balls his hands into fists at his side to keep himself together. There are too many people who need him right now for him to break, too many people who don't know and don't care about any of this – and one who _does_ , and who needs someone to prove now more than ever that the world doesn't have to be fair or make sense, but it doesn't have to be needlessly cruel, either.

He sinks heavily onto the edge of his desk again, a sigh rushing out of him as he does; and he looks at the faintly glowing incense stick, swallowing thickly.

"I'm so sorry, Helena," he murmurs into the smoke. His voice is ragged, and Boss hates how it trembles, just barely. "But I'll keep him safe. I swear to you, Helena, nothing's gonna hurt that boy again."

The unsteadiness evaporates from his voice as he makes his fierce promise, and he feels surer of himself as the words reverberate around the empty room, the weight of them burning in his chest. He means it – hells, he's never meant anything more in his life.

He won't – he _can't_ – fail his Jackdaw again.


End file.
